1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to oil well fire extinguishers and in particular extinguishers that are wholly surface operated.
2. Prior Art Discussion
The art of extinguishing oil well fires is relatively old and includes swatting such fires and, as televised broadcasting of the attempts to extinguish oil well fires in Kuwait revealed, fire extinguishers that were used in such efforts were open-ended cylinders. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,831. Such methods prove ineffective because they do not contain the fire and thus do not reduce the velocity of the oil jet. Another disadvantage of current methods is that they require large amounts of water which has no effect on extinguishing the fire and consequently its use is wasted. As in the case of U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,831, such methods allow the oil jet to continue to flow up through the cylinder and the oil well fire continues to burn. Such patent also uses an open-ended cylinder placed over the fire and fire extinguishing materials are introduced under pressure into the cylinder. Its principal disadvantage is that even with the introduction of fire extinguishing materials under pressure, the velocity of the jet oil flowing through the cylinder is not reduced or dispersed, and the fire continues to burn and as the oil jet exits the cylinder. The oil fire is fed by the available oxygen. As a result, the method used in U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,831 is lacking result effectiveness.